Segregation

Plessy v. Ferguson, landmark case of 1896 in which the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the legality of racial segregation. At that time segregation between blacks and whites already existed in most schools, restaurants, and other public facilities in the American South. In the Plessy decision, the Supreme Court ruled that such segregation did not violate the 14th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. This amendment, ratified in 1868, provides equal protection of the law to all U.S. citizens, regardless of race. The court ruled in Plessy that racial segregation was legal as long as the separate facilities for blacks and whites were “equal.” This “separate but equal” doctrine was only partially implemented after the decision. Railroad cars, schools, and other public facilities in the South were made separate, but they were rarely made equal.

Segregation is the legal or social practice of separating people on the basis of their race or ethnicity. Segregation by law occurred when local, state, or national laws required racial separation, or where the laws explicitly allowed segregation. De jure segregation has been prohibited in the United States since the mid 1960s. De facto segregation occurs when social practice, political acts, economic circumstances, or public policy result in the separation of people by race or ethnicity even though no laws require or authorize racial separation. De facto segregation has continued even when state and federal civil rights laws have explicitly prohibited racial segregation.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, landmark court case of 1954 in which the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously declared that it was unconstitutional to create separate schools for children on the basis of race, and where ordered to desegregate the schools ‘with all deliberate speed.’ At the time of the decision, 17 southern states and the District of Columbia required that all public schools be racially segregated. A few northern and western states, including Kansas, left the issue of segregation up to individual school districts. While most schools in Kansas were desegregated in 1954, those in Topeka were not.